To evaluate the influence of lexical development and task demands on maternal gestural behavior, we observed 17 German-speaking mothers and their children with typically language development (TD) and 9 mothers with their late talkers (LT) aged 22–25 months in task-oriented dialogues. Mothers instructed their children to put two objects together; canonical and — as more difficult tasks — noncanonical spatial relationships were requested. Deictic gestures were dominant in both groups and were used to reinforce speech. However, LT’s mothers gestured more than TD’s mothers and tended to hold their gestures throughout a complete utterance. Regarding the task demands, all mothers gestured more in noncanonical settings and this trend was more pronounced in LT’s mothers. Thus, certain aspects of gestural motherese (frequency and duration of gestures but not redundancy) seem to ‘operate’ on a scale between task difficulty and children’s language skills, suggesting that maternal communicative behavior is fine-tuned to children’s learning process.
Abramov, Olga, Friederike Kern, Sofia Koutalidis, Ulrich Mertens, Katharina Rohlfing & Stefan Kopp
2021. The Relation Between Cognitive Abilities and the Distribution of Semantic Features Across Speech and Gesture in 4‐year‐olds. Cognitive Science 45:7
Aktas, Maren
2020. Voraussetzungen und Bedingungen eines erfolgreichen Spracherwerbs. In Sprachentwicklung, ► pp. 45 ff.
2016. Effekte von Objekt-Familiarisierung auf die frühe gestische Kommunikation. Frühe Bildung 5:2 ► pp. 91 ff.
Lavelli, Manuela & Marinella Majorano
2016. Spontaneous Gesture Production and Lexical Abilities in Children With Specific Language Impairment in a Naming Task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 59:4 ► pp. 784 ff.
2017. Development of Pointing Gestures in Children With Typical and Delayed Language Acquisition. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 60:11 ► pp. 3185 ff.
2020. Integrated Communication System: Gesture and Language Acquisition in Typically Developing Children and Children With LD and DLD. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Medeiros, Kristen & Adam Winsler
2014. Parent–Child Gesture Use During Problem Solving in Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44:8 ► pp. 1946 ff.
Minto-García, Aline, Elda A. Alva Canto & Natalia Arias-Trejo
2020. Mothers’ Use of Gestures and their Relationship to Children’s Lexical Production. Psychology of Language and Communication 24:1 ► pp. 175 ff.
Molnar, Monika, Kai Ian Leung, Jodee Santos Herrera & Marcel Giezen
2023. Toddler-directed and adult-directed gesture frequency in monolingual and bilingual caregivers. International Journal of Bilingualism 27:5 ► pp. 717 ff.
Rohlfing, Katharina J. & Kerstin Nachtigäller
2016. Can 28-Month-Old Children Learn Spatial Prepositions Robustly from Pictures? Yes, When Narrative Input Is Provided. Frontiers in Psychology 7
2022. Which “motionese” parameters change with children's age? Disentangling attention-getting from action-structuring modifications. Frontiers in Communication 7
2016. An Alternative to Mapping a Word onto a Concept in Language Acquisition: Pragmatic Frames. Frontiers in Psychology 7
Singleton, Nina Capone & Jessica Saks
2015. Co-Speech Gesture Input as a Support for Language Learning in Children With and Without Early Language Delay. Perspectives on Language Learning and Education 22:2 ► pp. 61 ff.
2022. Integrating Gestures and Words to Communicate in Full-Term and Low-Risk Preterm Late Talkers. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19:7 ► pp. 3918 ff.
Wray, Charlotte & Courtenay Frazier Norbury
2018. Parents modify gesture according to task demands and child language needs. First Language 38:4 ► pp. 419 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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